The suspects are thought to have links to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which is an armed splinter organisation operating mainly in eastern Algeria and are also alleged to be involved in the criminal activities of forgery and illegal immigration. The Salafist group is reported to have links to al-Qaeda.
Italy has been on a state of high alert since the beginning of the year and while the Italian election campaign was going on, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu announced that the authorities had foiled two planned terrorist attacks, one on the underground in Milan and the other on a church in Bologna.
